How to Seduce a Ghost

In the pseudonymous McIntyre's sprightly debut, ghostwriter Lee Bartholomew has a lovely life in London's fashionable Notting Hill. Lee's career is humming along, an American soap opera diva having recently asked Lee to ghost her autobiography. Lee's only problem is one most heroines of Brit chick-lit would kill for: Tommy, her beau of eight years, is pressing Lee to marry, and Lee's not sure she's ready. Then Lee's neighbor, a star of children's TV, dies in a ghastly house fire, and the police begin whispering about arson and murder. Soon, tragedies and tribulations pile up, and Lee's once-simple life grows ever more complicated—and dangerous. Lee's garden shed, which she's been renting out to a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, goes up in flames. Her father leaves her mum for a French mistress. Too much to keep straight? Perhaps the unnecessary appearance of Lee's estranged childhood best friend as the local cop's new girlfriend is, shall we say, overkill. But all in all, McIntyre delivers a page-turner with a socially redeeming message. Agent, Joy Harris. (Oct.)